We had our class reunion last Saturday night, Walker High School, Class of ’73. It has been forty five years since we graduated. But here’s the real mind bender. It’s been fifty years since we started high school. That’s hard for me to wrap my head around. It certainly doesn’t seem like it. It may be a cliché, but it really seems like yesterday that I walked into the place that would become such of huge part of who and what I am.
Back in that time, there were no middle schools or junior highs in DeKalb County. We went to elementary school from grades one through seven and high school from eight through twelve. The thing I remember most about that first day at Walker was seeing the girls. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. The girls would walk by and they looked like, or were, full grown women. For a thirteen year old kid still going through stages of puberty and who up until that point had only been around the girls in his elementary school class, that was beyond the realm of comprehension. The upperclassmen all looked like giants, especially the jocks. Hoods wearing teardrop shoes hung around the restroom doors. When the door was opened and one entered or exited, you could see the blue cloud of cigarette smoke hanging below the ceiling. I quickly realized that was no place to venture into.
Walker opened in 1964 with split sessions at Gordon High School. The new building opened in 1965 and the Class of ’70 was the first graduating class to attend all five years there. It was located on Bouldercrest Road at the far western border of Gresham Park. This made it somewhat centrally located for the students not only from Gresham Park but also from the surrounding neighborhoods of East Atlanta, Cedar Grove, Kelley Lake and Constitution. As eighth graders we were grouped into blocs. As a result we were somewhat separated from the rest of the school. There were students in my bloc from the different elementary schools in the area including Sky Haven, Meadowview and Bouldercrest. I only remember one girl from Gresham Park Elementary being in my bloc, a girl named Susan Camp.
I eased into school life at Walker my first year there, playing football on the eighth grade team and wrestling on the B-Team. Wrestling was THE sport at Walker. We won the state championship five years in a row, first in the AA classification and then in the AAA. I made friends with a lot of kids from the different areas. I am friends with a lot of those same folks to this day.
The great thing about high school reunions is how the years just peel away. A number of years back we opened up the reunions to include all of the classes, with the class celebrating the anniversary being the host. In my opinion, that makes the reunions even better because we all grew up together. It is great to see old friends from the neighborhoods and talk about the old times. We look at the memorabilia, not only from the school, but also from the businesses in the area whose ads were published in the football programs. We look at the pictures on the memorial board and remember friends who were all gone to soon and lament that the list grows longer with each passing year. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have some of our teachers and coaches in attendance. All of us may be older with less hair that is not the same color as it once was. We may be wider and less mobile than we were at one time. We may go by different and more proper names these days, but some of us will always be Skippy, Eddie, Hambone, Duke and Butch. That’s because many of us have known one another from the age of six or younger and grew from childhood into adulthood together.
Walker had the distinction of not only being the first school built in DeKalb County with an air conditioning system but also the last school in the county named after a Confederate general, William H.T. Walker. Over time this was deemed unacceptable and the name of the school was changed. All records of the school have been obliterated and according to the DeKalb County Board of Education the school never existed.
But the school did exist and we, the alumni, are living proof. And I think that has made the bond between us even stronger. The trophies and memorabilia that were found in a school closet are now cherished, protected and proudly displayed at the reunions. Thor, our red-tailed hawk mascot, once painted orange and used as a doorstop before being rescued and restored, makes appearances mounted in his protective plexiglass case.
So we will continue to gather twice a year at our reunions and our picnics. We will have a refreshing beverage and blow our diets. We will hug each other, shake each other’s hand and slap one another on the back or shoulder. We’ll laugh a lot and maybe cry a little. We will do so every year. As long as there is one of us left standing, Walker High School will exist. We are Crimson. We are Silver. We are Warhawks. We always have been. We always will be.